Author Mindy Hardwick Muses about Writing

Picture Book Sold

I’m very excited to announce that my first picture book story has sold!

FINDERS KEEPERS sold to MeeGenius and will be a storybook app for kids.

Here is the story blurb:

Jesse is excited to go to the beach with his family. He wants to find one of the glass floats hidden along the grassy shore line of the Oregon Coast. But when both Dad and sister find a glass float, and Jesse turns up empty handed, he begins to wonder, will he find his glass float? It will take a fall wind storm for Jesse to find the best float of all!

The story is based on Finders Keepers, an event which takes place every fall and winter in Lincoln, City Oregon.

In the past, visitors searching Oregon’s beaches often found treasures from the east: blown glass floats, in intriguing shades of green and blue. Used by Japanese fishing crews to float their nets, these spheres were as small as two inches (5 cm) or as large as two feet (.6 m). Now, fishing vessels around the world use buoyant plastic, a blown glass float is a rare find – except on the beaches of Lincoln City, where more than 2,000 glass floats are found each winter, a few placed on the beach each day the ocean permits it. The number of glass floats which are hidden reflect the year – so 2001 in 2001, 2002 in 2002, etc….

Each glass float is signed by the glass artist and numbered.

In the picture book story, there is a storm which happens. My favorite part of the text is this:

The ocean looked like it was very angry. The water moved in large swells and white foam covered the beach. Jesse touched the white foam. It wiggled like a big moving monster. The wind blew pieces of foam down the beach like tumbleweed.

I have been out on the Oregon Coast during fall and winter storms and it is an amazing sight–both during the storm and after.

Here are a few pictures of that wiggling foamy monster…These pictures were taken from Ecola State Park in Cannon Beach on the Northern Coast during a Stormy Arts Weekend.